THE INDOCENTRIC RMA MODEL: LENDING AN

ASYMMETRIC THREAT PERSPECTIVE

 

“The difficulty lies not in new ideas,

but in escaping from the old ones.”

-          Lord Keynes

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Literature on Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) abounds, but there is little consen­sus about the meaning, scope and thrust of the term. That a policy could be hinged on ill-­understood and changing precepts of information technology (IT) in all its pervasive reach, became more of a debate than a precept in the US. The concepts of information and asym­metric warfare that were tagged on to the RMA were also as vaguely explicated as the latter. Elsewhere too, the RMA became a putative model, even a rage with little relevance to the security challenges, threat analyses, and operational doctrines of the nation states, which aped the US because it was in fashion to do so. In technology what had appeared futuristic day-before, became dated yesterday. There is little consensus on what has already matured and arrived in technology and what is as yet fledgling and emanating, and whether the con­cepts that underscore RMA are still valid after nine-eleven asymmetric attacks or have become totally irrelevant. Further, if we take the former view, what precisely are their implications for the dominant concern of the human society, severely challenged to combat terror? It is indeed a pertinent poser to our security concerns, committed as we are to fighting the never-ending proxy war.

 

The Web offers a treasure trove on the subject featuring both espousers and skeptics of RMA in variegated stripes. The uniqueness of this paper is that it is Indocentric and is not tied to any preconceived doctrine. Further, it rests on the belief that doctrines, whatever be their merit, cannot be a substitute for national interests, and national interests cannot supplant national values.

 

THE CONCEPTUAL MAZE

 

Ask a scholar of what RMA is and out tumble words like transformation, re-ordering of force structure, modernisation, machine intelligence, network-centric precision targetting, information warfare (IW) and battlefield digitisation. If he extends his imagination further, electronic and space weaponry is added for a measure. Then there are homilies like creating responsive, scalable, modular, task-organised units; acquiring lethal and precision firepower; exploiting multi-dimensional supremacy; and to top it, synergising high-tech with 'network­centric sensor to shooter concept'. "Into this prevailing policy vacuum, the military leaders have tossed an expensive collection of the wish lists that extend to one of the two extremes a bigger, faster, better version of some platform already in use, or something out of science fiction with delivery timelines that stretch all the way to 2032."¹ Most of us are not even sure about the meaning of technology, where science leaves off, and technology takes over. Some military theorists are inclined to emphasise "historical discontinuities"² as cause and consequence of the conduct of warfare. This is erroneous as the rate of shift of technologi­cal paradigm is so fast that no military doctrine or practice can ever chase it. The process or the model has to be evolutionary and ongoing rather than revolutionary and abrupt. "It should be noted from the perspective of the participants in the process, what was seen as evolution­ary by the victorious side could have been seen as revolutionary by the losing side – and by history."³

 

What was Information Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution⁴ in the civil be­came RMA in the military, its locus and focus being networks and databases endowed with attributes of access, high-speed data processing and mobile communications. Cyberspace became an arena; online and Web acquired popularity and influence unparalleled by any media; and intelligence analysts, communicators and nerds, hitherto a breed of castoffs and whipping boys to be damned if they acted, to be damned if they did not, gained respectability overnight. However, a definition of RMA remained illusive.

 

It was the Chinese who did a serious in-depth study, more to learn from their adver­saries, than to adopt it in their schema. According to a scholar, "RMA is a collection of systems that use machine intelligence to process information to give command, control, com­munications and computer systems a near real-time capability to operate, along with ad­vances in doctrine and tactics to use these new capabilities in war."⁵ They lend perspective to the evolutionary process, viz, "from electronic warfare (EW) to command and control warfare to information warfare" leading to knowledge warfare, the next stage in the pro­gression.⁶

 

There is a general confusion about the scope of RMA. Most authors confine it to IW, some even suggesting that the thrust and play of the two terms is synonymous. The Chinese see information technology (IT) as a key driver of the RMA and IW as its critical element. Characterising “the 21^st Century as information-based warfare period,” Mr Li Deshun opines, “The primary goal of information warfare is gaining information dominance. There are three elements of IW that are critical, viz, information weapons, information (battle)field, and information force. Information weapons include Precision Guided Munitions (PGM), EW, optics, computer viruses, and high-powered microwaves. The information field is the integration of all fields across the electromagnetic frequency spectrum. Information force is described by the dynamic, stand-up of network-based organisation for fighting tomorrow’s war.”⁷

 

 

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

 

Everyday that passes is harbinger of fresh tidings from science and technology. The civilization was and continues to be in the throes of ill-defined, never-ending technological revolutions. Electrotechnology, infotechnology, biotechnology, and lately nanotechnology have each heralded a societal metamorphosis with neither a beginning, nor middle, nor an end. What were yesterday a series of industrial, electronic or digital ages ever striving for the "pinnacle," are today the onset of widely speculated and convoluted 'bioinformatic age' and 'genome age'; tomorrow we may well promote from as yet nascent 'micro age' to 'nano­age.' To be effective, these technologies need to be integrated inter se, and enmeshed with, the operational concepts inter alia nation's socioeconomic agenda for action.

 

Time was when "Robots, or for that matter any artificial life form, began to be univer­sally seen as malignant creatures which would ultimately try to destroy mankind. This was a pity since this suspicion influenced scientific work on a man machine interface - so essential for the development of both genetics and cybernetics".⁸ Today the British have a Robot Air Force. In the US, an association of nearly 300 scientists and engineers spread across 45 project teams and coordinated by the Office of Naval Research have embarked on a "Mul­timedia Intelligent Network of Unattended Mobile Agents or Minutemen."⁹ This is a net­work of Aerial Vehicles (AVs), called the Golden Hawk, which requires a wireless internet in the sky, that would connect and inter-work thousands of AVs that carry weapon systems, reconnaissance and communication equipment.¹⁰

 

Another frontier technology is Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), which may well herald a second semiconductor revolution, with a magnitude equalling, if not sur­passing, the "first." It has yet to explore domains in which sensors and scanners so small that they are imperceptible to human eye. Sky is the limit for its impact on terror-killer munitions and other applications that demand stealth.¹¹ The Institute for Defense Analyses (US) has a MEMS Technology Transition Programme that explores location, evaluation and initiation of MEMS insertion opportunities within the Department of Defense (DoD). Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) too is investigating innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in this emerging technology.^l2 Assembling microparts into microsystems, is an area that is receiving wide attention. For instance, Micromachine Re­search Project by the Japanese aims at creation of "a desktop factory."¹³ MEMS have immense possibilities in counter-terrorism applications, some of which are mentioned be­low:¹⁴

 

·         Biological and chemical detection systems to monitor, detect and characterise concealed, clinical, biological, radiological, nuclear and highly explosive substances and to render them useless.

• Microfluidic Molecular Systems, which can provide multiple reaction and analy­sis techniques in one micro-instrument and be deployed remotely, highly relevant to biometric systems with automated sample acquisition, sample prepara­tion, analysis, detection, identification, verification and instantaneous digital out­put, all rolled in one.
• Microsensors and transducers. to include a wide variety of subsets and applica­tions in locating and identifying terrorists, sniffing explosives and contraband and exploring Weapons of Mass Destruction(WMD).
• Microelectrodes for neurophysiology.
• Public health and environment monitoring systems.
• Micromunitions and nanobombs.
• Space based systems where weight and size are critical.
• Disaster rescue systems.
• Manpack systems to reduce weight carried by the Jawan.

 

Today, the word nanotechnology has become very popular. It is used to describe a basketful of research initiatives, where the characteristic dimensions are less than 1,000 nanometers that build new materials atom by atom with attributes of positional assembly, self replication and molecular robotics to boot the system. The concept is to produce newer materials at molecular scale manoeuvering atoms in the right place and making structures of own choice. In the age of nanos, mankind will acquire awesome power for good or evil, nano materials, devices and computing have revolutionary applications in manufacturing, commu­nications, bio-medicine, environment agriculture and defence with multifaceted terrestrial, oceanic or spatial devices and systems. The scientists are toying with spy nanobots and nanosatellites of the size of a bee, which will peep down and provide instantaneous round the clock communications. "We are also looking at ways of making memory out of biological molecule. These memories are nonvolatile and very dense – we estimated that we could take a map of the world of one meter accuracy and pack it into a memory made out of a molecule that gave the device the size of a sugar cube." ¹⁵

 

In April 1999. Applied Systems Intelligence Inc. (ASI) was selected by the USAF to develop innovative information technology for a Global Information Base(GIB) of "storing global awareness information"¹⁶ besides providing information services for dynamic plan­ning and execution of operations. The software developed by the firm is called KARNAC, short for Knowledge-Aided Retrieval in Activity Context. It is a highly versatile broad-based project anchored on a bunch of technologies and decision support and database management systems. It is designed to detect, identify and corroborate impending terrorist operations, inter alia missions of the like kind.¹⁷

 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the military the world over is in an age behind in harnessing the technology and discarding operational dogmas; and blasphemous as it may sound, the terrorist are an age ahead. Herein lies Pakistan's advantage. Proxies have their use, be it to fight battles or to spy for technology and information with double-crossing as a justifiable stratagem. To act as proxy for other powers is as expedient as to employ dahshat pasands (terrorists) with a grip on their 'tooti' (scruff of the neck).¹⁸

 

Even China, which is highly progressive in its thinking and technology sentient, shows old-school preferences. This may well be because of its strategic compulsions rather than perceptions. It identifies seven technology thrust areas for IW or information operations, viz., air and missile defence technology, PGM technology, defensive weapon technology,  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) technology, military space technology, and naval carrier (air-to-ship integration) technology.¹⁹

 

Information is a strategic resource. It is now universally accepted that it must be accessed, integrated and secured. The cyberspace is increasingly recognied as the modern civilization's virtual abode with Internet and World Wide Web at the front-end lending its all­pervasive reach within and without. As more and more human activities, e.g., e-commerce, e-learning, e-medicine, e-governance, e-services move online, physical isolation of computer systems or what is commonly called "air gap" is no more an option.²⁰ As of today, IT is decidedly at the driver's seat of the RMA. But time is not far when bio- and nano-technolo­gies, with their broader and deeper impact on economic, social, military, industrial and even information structures, will overtake it. The objective is knowledge building to create a knowl­edge economy, a knowledge society and by implication a knowledge army.

 

 

OPERATIONAL DOCTRINES

 

A military revolution is fundamentally an exploration of new concepts, envisioning of the shape of things to come²¹ and force analysis leading to its restructuring and pruning. It is not a mere window dressing or seasoning as is widely misconstrued, often perverted. Not even the US, where the concept originated, has made any drastic change let alone reorder­ing. Admittedly, there is much progress in some of the key attributes like the ability to proc­ess, archive and mine data in real time, detect targets-and engage them across the globe, and bring precision to targetting, glaring goof-ups in Afghanistan regarding the last mentioned notwithstanding. The network-centric warfare model. that was put into effect in Afghanistan was "the single most important contributor to the greatly enhanced combat power wielded by the US."²² Its topology is described by Paula R Kaufman, "Data picked up by intelli­gence sensors from cellphone, or radio frequency(RF) emissions are moved by voice or digitally, via datalinks to optical or other types of sensing platforms. The platforms might include, for example, an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, a Navy F 17 A-18 Hornet, or an Air Force AC-130 gunship. Intelligence gathered is then analyzed on whether to attack the target or continue observing it. If a decision is made to attack, command centres are tasked to take out the target by best-positioned shooter."²³

 

Ironically, it is the ideologues of Al Qaida who have shown new ways of waging war, exploiting the distinguishing features of IT, e.g., asymmetry virtuality. synchronization and remote control covert operations and communications, the merits of which have been so demonstratively and convincingly proved. The future threats would be less of conventional, symmetric and of peer character, and more of unconventional, asymmetric and niche type. The peer-level regional threat too is likely to be more in the proxy shape. If that be the kind of challenges we will face, then it would be pertinent to suggest that the taxonomy of the Indocentrie model of RMA must eschew rigidity, hierarchy, and bulk, and instead adopt slimmer, trimmer and meaner (devilish if need be) postures.

 

RELEVANCE OF RMA TO ASYMMETRIC THREATS

 

Gray, in his thought provoking paper, "Thinking Asymmetrically in Times of Terror" writes that the best way to understand asymmetric threats is to study their characteristics and peculiarities which he describes as unusual, irregular, unconventional, unmatched, highly leveraged against the military and more often civil assets, difficult to respond to in kind, pose a level of response dilemma, and friendly to the frightening prospect of the "unknown un­known."²⁴ Because choices for asymmetric activity merge with commonsense approaches to strategy, he advocates doing what the enemy docs not expect.²⁵

 

Admittedly, there was a colossal and unpardonable intelligence failure in the US at the time of nine eleven asymmetric attacks. It is not that the US defence community was not cognizant of asymmetric threats against twin towers of the WTC, a target previously as­saulted unsuccessfully; the problem lay "in locating decision rules to filter threats worthy of serious attention from the rest".²⁶ However, it is to the decision makers' credit that the response at that defining moment in history was spontaneous, highly mature, unified and disciplined. And this is what makes a great nation. National Information Protection Centre (NIPC, pronounced nip see) went into action immediately. So did motley of think tanks, public and private. They deliberated and risk-assessed the likely cyber threat scenarios. Would there be an electronic Pearl Harbour? Would e-commerce, another logo of Uncle Sam's hegemony, be also targetted in tandem with the physical attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon? How does Osama, the Master Terrorist, rank United States' much touted Na­tional Information Infrastructure (NII).²⁷ In his target schema, vis-a-vis the Pentagon, the White House and the WTC? These were the questions that nagged the intelligence and security communities then as they do today; in the US, as they do elsewhere in the civilised world.

 

THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

 

The RMA thinking has challenged traditional Indian precepts about warfare, espe­cially the concept of composite battle groups, which even the Chinese wish to explore. They too feel that new organisational concepts, such as the joint task force are needed to fully exploit RMA.²⁸

 

RMA cannot but be an offensive concept. Positional warfare is a total negation of RMA. The current border deployment may not meet the scrutiny of the revolutionary nu­ances. Continued use of inferior weaponry is telling on our preparedness. And then, there is the psychological aspect because oflong-drawn inactivity, which too places the troops un­der tremendous mental strain. In IW, there is no front line; in another words, front is not necessarily where the action is. IW is a netwar where nodes are attacked and defended electronically, physically and metaphorically.

 

Attacking enemy's information infrastructure is as vital as defending one's own and the former is decidedly cheaper than the latter. Here a developing country has an edge, if pitched against a developed country; contrarily, the terrorists enjoy advantage in either case because of choice and surprise of lucrative targets to attack. Terror spreads feelings of fear, desperation and inadequacy. It generates a tendency to creation of a garrison state, or worse, striking a political deal with the terrorists a la the infamous bargain at Kandhar.

 

           There is also a tendency to dignify the terrorist by either overreacting or underplay­ing. The showing of national character is in bravely accepting infliction, injury and impairment, but never giving in to blackmail and acts of terror. Our byword should be: if killing a dozen suspects can save hundred innocents, then that is fair. Likewise if hundred hijacked have to be sacrificed for the honour of the country to save thousands later, then that too is fair. The challenge to our policy makers is not to look for military for every solution but to seek options elsewhere. Ideation and practice of IW in its wide enfold, obviously has the answer. However, the options defy codification as each situation is unique; further, codification would negate the very precepts of innovation, surprise and deception.²⁹

 

SUGGESTED MODEL

 

Technologies. Technology is not merely a force multiplier but the very kernel and source of "force." The much-touted precept, that, "Man matters more than technology" is fundamen­tally false. "Man" is only a species, genetically not very different from mouse. It is the technology (call it information or knowledge) that makes it different vis-a-vis other species. Recommended thrust areas are:

 

·               From macro to micro to nano.

·               From data to information to intelligence to knowledge.

·               From lab to field with time-line reduction.

·               Bio-genetic, biometric, and bio-informatic research agenda

 

Strategies. Military is neither the only nor the last resort alternative for application of force. Security strategy is holistic. It embraces and harmonises diplomacy, internal security, eco­nomic interests, and other parameters and instruments of state policy. Asymmetric threats require a mix of symmetric and asymmetric responses, the latter anchored on surprise and deception.

Domains. The operational arena has expanded to include cyber and space to the traditional domains of land, sea and air. Therefore, let all our conceptual thinking and agenda for action transform from tri-shakti to panch-shakti (triangular to pentagon force structure).

 

Networks. "In the information age, power moves from the centre to the edges of an organization."³⁰ The most significant aspect of RMA is the creation of joint, well-coordi­nated multi-node, dynamic networks that provide service synergy, strategic synchronization, and operational symphony. In essence, it entails establishment of Command, Control, Com­munication and Intelligence (C³1) nodes based on knowledge-centric, small-sized echelons of command, expansion of span of control, global reach of communications, all-source and virtual intelligence, and chaturbhuj horizontal integration with "peer to peer and edge to edge relations"³¹ of power sharing.

 

Warfare Concepts. The agenda for think tanks is so vast that even listing it is a herculean exercise. The greatest challenge before us is to create a techno-strategic culture. Both the asymmetric threat and asymmetric response are anchored in IW in all its embrace, viz., command and control warfare, electronic warfare, cyber warfare, hacker warfare, psycho­logical warfare, economic warfare, intelligence warfare, crypto warfare and netcentric war­fare with real time sensor-to-shooter response.

 

Operational Thrust Areas. At the operational and tactical levels, we need to totally over­haul our perceptions. The thrust areas are:

 

• Taking technology to the trench.
• Achievement of information superiority.
• Psychological operations to paralyse the enemy.
• Information security to keep our NII and information assets safe and inviolate.
• Intelligence and battlefield awareness at all levels.

 

 

THE TRAINING AGENDA

 

Specific to the Army, we need a leaner force structure, and a priori highly profes­sional one. This imposes an enormous burden on training. In asymmetric threats there are no replays. Therefore, earlier we get rid of the routinized, conventional, sand-model, pink-solu­tion culture, the better. Otherwise the grading conscious products would behave incompe­tently when faced with the "unknown unknown." Simply attending staff or command courses and compulsory schooling is not enough. Performance in battle, ability to face crises coupled with continual update of knowledge should be the paramount criteria for promotion. Let the entire army be trained to think and operate like elite special operations forces. We need unconventional minds and certainly not conventional mindsets. The Army needs to adopt threat sniffing as a doctrine. More time needs to be spent on framing strategy rather than following it. Soldering and engineering cannot be separately pigeonholed. It is in the integra­tion of these professions that the full potential and promise of RMA can be realised. We need to follow the example of the Navy in lateral movement.

 

Cyberspace is the high ground that needs to be held at all costs. We need expertise in patrolling it. We need cyber commandos to capture enemy's Web sites and build perimeter defences to ensure safety and integrity of our own. We need a civil defence system that is dynamic and in tune with the emerging threats, the emerging technologies and the emerging social obligations. The challenges before the civil defence have immensely multiplied with terrorist acquiring expertise in weapons of mass destruction and info-terror and subversion. We need think tanks to find answers to intractable problems, and committed hands to take them on.

 

CONCLUSION

 

The RMA, as conceived in this paper, implies a struggle to keep pace with the techno­logical development on the one hand and making the defence establishment responsive to newer threats to national security on the other. It is a battle to fulfill the aspirations of the citizens to a secure life and development. It places ICT at the centre-stage of policy, man­agement and structures, opening new vistas and conducting missions, howsoever complex and critical, faster and more competently. It comes down heavily on flab, clerkishness, inef­ficiency, technology pooh-poohing and vainglory. It considers unwieldy hierarchical organi­sations inherently inept and defective in contending asymmetric threats and fighting proxy wars; therefore, ill-adaptable to the ongoing RMA or the one which will follow it.

 

In the Eleventh Adhyay of Geeta, Arjun sees Lord's Vishvaroop, signifying the evo­lution of universe or the civilization's revolutions if one so prefers to call it, 'without begin­ning, without middle and without end'. RMA is the Viratroop of the Lord.

 

 

 

END NOTES

 

1. Douglas A Macgregor, "Resurrecting Transformation for the Post-Industrial Era," Defense Horizons, September 2001.

2. See Jeffrey McKitrick et al. "The Revolution in Military Affairs." Chapter 3. Battlefield of the Future, at www.airpower.maxwell.afmil/airchroniclcs/battle/chp3/, p.l.

3. See Theodor W Galdi "Revolution in Military Affairs?" at www.fas.org/. p. 3.

4. The theme of the Telecommunication Day 2002 was "ICT for All: Empowering People to Bridge the Digital Divide" See ITU Home Page, www.itu.int

5. As defined by Ms. Xu Jue at a Sino-US workshop. The workshop was held at the China Defense Science & Technology Information Ccnter (CDSTIC) in Beijing, and co-sponsored by US­based HERO Library. See Robert ButJer, Charles Hawkins, and Timothy Thomas. "West Meets East: Chinese and Western Researchers Exchange Views on the Revolution in Military Affairs" www.herolibraIy.org/p117.

6. Ibid. Mr Li Deshun's presentation at the Workshop. The concept of knowledge warfare has been taken from Charles Hawkins' lecture on infarmation warnlre in March 1997.

7. Ibid.

8. "Hawking's angst," Hindustan Times. 5 Sep 2001.

9. See "It's time far robotic warfare" The Times of India, 13 July 2002.

10. Ibid.

11. See Yashwant Deva, "Background Paper on Tcchnologies to Combat Terrorism, JETE Apex Forum, http://www.iete.info/ and http://www.ydeva.info/.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Anthony Tether, Director DARPA, in an interview with Spectrum's Senior Associate Editor

Jean Kumagai, "DARPA Sceks a Return to Swashbuckling Days at www.spectrum.ieee.org/

16. n.5.

17. Ibid.

18. The expression tooti was used by Musharraf in the famous Kargil tapes. See Yashwant Deva, "Of Tapes and Tapping," at www.ipcs.org/

19. Li Deshun, n.5.

20. See Richard 0 Bundley and Robert B Anderson. "Security in Cyberspace: An Emerging Challenge for Society." Rand Papers, (Santa Monica, 1994), p. 23.

21. See Yashwant Deva, "Electronic Weapons: The Shape of Things to Come," Indian Defence Review, October, 1993.

22. Paula R Kaufman, "Network-Centric Warfare - The Key to the Revolution in Military Affairs," at www.spectrum.ieee.org/

23. Ibid.

24. Colin S Gray, 'Thinking Asymmetrically in Times ofTen'or" Parameters, Spring 2002, pp. 5-14.

25. Ibid.

26. For description of NII and its security implications, see Yashwant Deva, Secure or Perish. (Ocean Book Depot Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 200 I), pp.49-62.

27. n.5.

28. This precisely is the sense and substance of the paper, "Surprise and Deception in the Age of Transparency and Morality: View and Anti-View," published in the last issue of the Pinnacle, which too enjoins practising the precepts advanced by Chanakya. Sun Tzu and Mao. See Pinnacle, March 2002,pp.I03-114.

29. This quote is attributed to Vice Admiral Arthur Cobrowski. See "Contributing Editor, Paula R I Kaufmann, interviews the father of Net-centric Warfare," News Analysis, Spectrum News and Analy­I sis at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org (modified: 28 June 2002).

30. Ibid.